Ticket to Ride Pocket 1.1 – Now with Multi Mode

Now available from the App Store – Ticket to Ride Pocket 1.1 with a new Multi Mode feature that incorporates iOS Game Center asynchronous play support. Available as a free update to existing Pocket users, Version 1.1 of our best-selling iPhone and iPod Touch app now lets you play – and pause – multiple turn-based games of Ticket to Ride. The iOS 5 Game Center lets you play against your friends or auto-match worthy opponents to challenge you.

In addition to the new Multi Mode, we have also beefed up our Local play mode, allowing you to play – and pause – games over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi networks, using any mix of iPhones, iPod Touch devices and even iPads running Ticket to Ride.

New Multi Mode and enhanced Local Play… even more reason to add Ticket to Ride Pocket to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Visit the App Store now and put Ticket to Ride in your Pocket.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 14:59 and is filed under Days of Wonder Online, News, Ticket to Ride. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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The issue is that Apple’s current API implementation does not allow two different Apps (e.g. Ticket to Ride Pocket and Ticket to Ride for iPad) to connect together for Asynchronous play (even though it does for Local play).

This is true, but only a problem because you stupidly decided to make two separate apps. Why don’t you check out how a proper board game port works: Carcassonne. Perfect asynchronous play across BOTH iPad and iPhone. Get with the program Days of Wonder.

Any future for non-US maps on the iPhone? I would happily pay more to have Europe as an option, just for a start (although I suppose the layout of the European map could be tricky on the iPhone screen).

So at 47% vs 30% the number of Android devices is 1.56 times as much as iOS devices. But that’s not the number app developers care about. The revenue brought in by app downloads is the relevant number here – and those numbers are extraordinarily weighted in favor of iOS devices. Various independent third parties are trying to measure the numbers, but they all seem to fall somewhere between 3:1 and 6:1 in favor of iOS. In addition to the much larger revenue, when you factor in that it’s easier to write/support for iOS, there is no surprise that an iOS version is done long before an Android version.

There is a danger that by ignoring Android development, that the argument that apps don’t sell on Android will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If companies don’t release high quality paid-for apps on Android, then nobody can buy them. In the mean time, free fan-coded versions will appear instead, so if you do release your own official version, then you are fighting against an established, cheaper competitor. For example, if Dominion is ever released on Android, it will be competing against Andromincon, which is free, but has no graphics and is a bit clunky to play. The only way that an official Dominion app could compete would be with high quality artwork and a really nice interface.

I’d like to see some data on how sales have been for games like Carcassonne, Catan and Hey, That’s My Fish! which have been released on Android.

There is a big difference between iOS and Android development, and that is the cost of the development tools and the cost of publishing. On iOS you have to develop on a Mac (still a minority platform) and access to the SDK costs $99 a year if you want to be able to test on real devices and upload to the App Store. So it’s not exactly bedroom coder material.

On Android, the barrier to entry is zero. You can develop on whatever computer you already have and the development tools are free. This means that there are an awful lot of free or ad-supported apps, which on iOS would cost money. Who would buy a fart app for 99c for an Android phone when there are plenty of free alternatives?

To make money on Android, you have to provide something which cannot easily be provided by a bedroom coder for free. That is exactly the category that board games fit into. Also I suspect that there is quite a high proportion of people who like niche hobbies such as board gaming who also deliberately avoid iProducts exactly because they don’t like following what they perceive to be a herd mentality. So the market for board games on Android may actually be higher than the market for other types of app.

Of course there are problems with Android development – clearly the different hardware variations, screen-sizes, etc. are an issue. Also, I suspect that there are less ‘professional level’ coding tools and middleware platforms available.

But companies like Days of Wonder now have a great stepping stone to work from, given that they now have all the assets in a digital format and have the basic designs and logic of the apps to work from. It would be hoped that porting games to Android will soon become a higher priority. They may not make as much money initially as the iOS versions, but it is an untapped and growing market with a lot of people ready and willing to pay.

“So the market for board games on Android may actually be higher than the market for other types of app.” I mean of course when compared to iOS – clearly board games will still be a relatively minority interest on both platforms.

And one other data point: Elder Signs was been released by FFG simultaneously on iOS and Android. Currently the number of reviews for the iPad and iPod versions combined is 320. The same game on Android has been reviewed 382 times. Assuming that a similar proportion of people on both platforms bother to review the game, it would suggest that sales were broadly equivalent between iOS and Android.

I would suggest that sales of a game like Elder Sign is a better indicator of the likely success of a DoW boardgame release on Android than looking at unrelated market research looking at average sales on the different platforms.